Finally...Combining TWO 1985 300D's
 

Howdy all,
So this is a fresh new thread for what has become the ultimate (hopefully) phase of ending up with a well working and fully enjoyable 1985 300D.

First up, here are the two vehicles, #1 and #2..
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6481.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6480.JPG


For the past yaer or so i've been sorting through Car #1 and it's issues. There are some threads on it.

I just picked up Car #2 two days ago, with the plan to pull varoius aspects of pieces (and work) from Car #1 onto Car#2.

#2 has a good transmission, which was more or less the final hurdle for Car #1 but i came across Car #2 for sale for less than i would have paid just for the transmission job and also was able to acquire a multitude of other major perks along with it. Including fully usable/restorable panels, a Plant Drive biodiesel system, less rust under car, a good exhaust line, and a bunch of stuff that just so happened to cooridnate between the two cards such as certain doors having issues where the other one's doesn't. Complete luck overall.

Car #1 has a bunch of work done to it, which i'm not going to rap on about here. But there are many things i can pull over to car #2, and also there are as is segments on #1 that are better and will be pulled over too. Hood from #1, dash from #1, both front doors from #1, so on and so forth.

Both cars are fully registered and insured and drivable. #2's major issue is the main vacuum pump is not working properly so the engine needs to be manually shut off after key shutoff, the locks are manual of course, and the brakes have no power so it's like pressing concrete blocks. The pads are good though.

I was going to jump right into the pump swap and get #2 to be immediately coasting well, but as i mentioned in other threads #2 has a mold issue in the interior that i need to address. I have to wear a particle mask while driving or else my lungs end up irritated after just 10 minutes driving, even with the windows down.

When i first pulled up to my house the first thing i did was remove all of the floor mats and hang them out to dry. The back left one was fully soaked and dripping. And then then next morning i went and cleaned out the drain holes in left and right side of engine bay which is the main (if not only) cause of water getting to both rear floor mats when it rains.

The problem now is that in the front right floor, the 1/4" padding beneath the floor mats, that is adhered to the "floorboard", is totally soaked still. It does not appear to be easy to dry this out. Below is a picture...

You can even see the water in the circle there. If you press around it, water squishes up from it. It's totally soaked.

What should i do? The drivers side appears to be dry although it might not be perfectly dry underneath of it.

Are these supposed to dry out pretty quickly by design? The thing is, i believe i may have fully caused the passenger side one to be soaked while i was doing testing of cleaning out the drain holes in engine bay as stated above. I thought that it was cleared completely but it turns out there was still a clog deep in, and when pouring water in much of it went down into passenger section. But some of it may have already been there before. I'm not sure. I actualy hope i am completely responsible for the soaking because then maybe it will dry out in a couple days.

Any thoughts? The smell in the car seems to be slowly decreasing but even after having the mats out for 24 hours with windows open i still had to use a mask yesterday eve and my lungs still suffer today from it. I have the edges of most carpeting lifted up to dry but i assume there may be some mold underneat these front floor pads.

Is this pad stuff removable and replaceable? As you can see i lifted up a little square section toward front. Came up pretty easy but falls apart easily so would not be a clean removal but rather a destructive one.

And what is it's purpose? Is it there to prevent sound from under car entering cabin? And general insulation of temperature? What happens if i just remove it for now? Loud and cold car? Could i just dig it all up and out and worry about replacing it later?


http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6483.JPG

I use a large sponge to soak up what I can and drain it on the ground ~ this takes time and effort but is worthwhile to me .

If you rip up the padding you'll get serious noise and bad fitting carpets to boot as the floor isn't flat .

I've forgotten the name but there used to be a spray stuff you'd dilute with water to kill mildew , mold and fungus , maybe a very weak mixture of bleach and water ?. BE CAUTIOUS WITH BLEACHING PRODUCTS ! .

You need to buy a Mity-Vac tool, diagnose and repair the vacuum pump ASAP as it's a serious safety item .

Once you've isolated the issue it's easy to repair and soon you'll have proper shifting as well as *instant* engine shutoff and door / truck / fuel flap locks .

Thank you. Whichever car i drive daily, i will keep the good vac pump in. For now, with the serious mold issue, i don't want to subject myself to driving in #2 so i'll keep the pump where it is in #1 and drive that one until i clear the mold in #2.

I have a mighty vac already. I believe i'm equipped to do the swap whenever i am ready. What all will it entail in terms of installing and checking vac? Just tetsing the pump itself for 12 psi or whatever it is? I rememer in #1 the main pump tested fully well with mighty vac.

Would love to know the name of the spray if you think of it..

20" of vaccum when tested at the pump's inlet .

12" isn't going to do anything .

I hope you've begun the normal ritual engine & chassis cleaning and de greasing because where you're going to be working is always filthy and tiny bits of crud WILL fall in and cause more problems .

Before taking the 'bad' pump off, remove the hard line and then the valve that screws in and check it ~ they fail and/or get cruddy and so cause loos of vacuum when the pump is otherwise still healthy and no need to dismount it .

The pump proper is held to the engine by 5MM ATF hed allen screws and they're always full of dirt, clean them out with a tiny flat screw driver and always tap the Allen wrench or socket (better to use a 3/8" drive Allen socket) before trying to turn them loose .

I'd go check out the Dollar Store typ places for mildew killers ~ read the labels .

Ok 20, yeah i just couldn't remember the number.
And thanks for the suggestions. I will follow these before doing anything. It sure would be nice if the "bad" pump had a fix possible. Then i would have the option of driving both cars safely for a while.

I have not fussed with anything under the hood. Just been worried about the mold.

I received some advice on engine cleaning in my other project thread for car #1 so i will follow that.

I still have a question of these pads though.. if i were to soak them with mildew killer and/or if i need to just let them dry out from the water... do these pads ever fully dry out on their own? I've used paper towels and pressed down and got all of the water up and out that i can, but there is still a thin layer of water sitting under all of it. I have been leaving the windows open but i could see this taking a month to dry like that, no?

Is there some kind of powder i can put down to absorb and then vacuum out?

I'd suggest renting a dehumidifier and running it in the car for a day or two.

GOOD CALL. I had a large one in the basement that's currently sitting in the front passenger seat. No reason for me to not keep running it the next several days like this. Maybe i'll attack the carpet of interior with some mildew treatment as well during this. However my original plan was to pull up all of the carpeting and swap this as well. But maybe that's opening up a can of worms. Might be better to just deep clean #2's carpet.

A friend stopped over and we swapped the hoods of my cars. So now #2 has the better hood overall.. no bubbling of paint, no major scratches, and it just so happened that the medallion was present and the grill was much better so it was a two birds ordeal.

I am likely going to tackle swapping the two front doors this weekend. The entire doors i mean. Paint, dents, window regulators (replaced/refurbished), rust, door checks, are all great on #1 so it makes sense for me to do this. #2's front doors have issues on all of the above factors. And i had also already installed 6.5" speakers on #1's front doors too, which was NOT easy. Only complication is i will need to consider keys and locks.

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6485.JPG

I agree, leave the dehumidifier in , don't mess with the under pads ~ once you're damaged, you're in for a spot of bother .

The door handles are dead easy to swap over, you'll need a long (like 18") #2 Philips head one to loosen the forward screw .

Have a small magnet on hand as it's easy to drop the super short screws and mind the special lock washers ! .

Might as well puff some graphite lube in the key holes now before they get a chance to freeze up . NO OIL, NO WD40 CRAP ! . graphite only . I use liquid graphite .

I'd address the vacuum issues before anything else, you'll be amazed at how much difference it makes in the shifting plus not having to pop the hood to shut it off anymore .

Ok, I went and checked the vacuum pumps on both vehicles, starting with the known good one and then the new #2 one assumed to be bad.
I cleaned the connection areas before fiddling, and hooked up the mighty vac and on #1 got a perfectly solid 22.
On #2, i got total 0 and i figured since i had a hand pump connected i could see what happens when i tried generating pressure and it does not hold anything.
Now, this is with the main tube still connected from the vacuum pump to the brake booster, since that is so difficult to disconnect. I simply disconnected the two other lines and plugged one and used the other for testing. Did it the same way in both vehicles.

Can we glean any information/diagnosis of #2 with the knowledge that no pressure is held at this spot when hand pumped?

Figured I'd ask that before trying anything else.

Also, so far it seems i've very much removed a lot of the mold issue from the vehicle. I left the dehumidifier and also a heavy duty air purifier running in the car overnight. A little dangerous but oh well. I have also now sprayed the Mold Control (EPA approved non-bleach natural solution) in multiple phases over all of the dirty looking areas of carpet and also those floorpads in front seats. Also along the edges along side seats that get dirty too. Also under the bench seat.

When i sit in the car now it smells closer to #1, just like vintage vinyl, and it seems to be improving throughout the course of the day as i've had doors wide open (light shut off) all day.

The part of the pump that the hard line attaches to, it the valve ~ unscrew and remove it, it's only allowed to blow through one way .

They're available new if it's bad .

I don't quite understand... Are you saying that the section of the pump itself that this hard line attaches to is confirmed bad and we know this from my test of getting no held vacuum when pumping handheld along hard line between pump and booster?

Or are you saying i should take that section off and test it by blowing one way and if it blows both ways it is them confirmed bad?

And what might it be called in stores if i shopped around such as peachparts?

Just one last update for the day, before i run out of daylight.
Not enough time to do the actual job of removing pump or section of pump, but i was curious enough to remove the hard metal line that connects all of the rubber lines to the pump, and do a test on the pump directly in this manner.
With the engine off, i can do a hand pump test and it holds vacuum. I had not tried this with engine off when test point was on the rubber lines though, only while engine was on. So i don't know if this concludes anything.
With the engine running, it was the same as before and i do not get any vacuum with hand pump.
I also was surprised that the engine didn't shut off using the shutoff button but rather stuttered. Then when i pulled off the connection to pump and hit shut off switch it shut off fine.
This doesn't make sense to me but i don't actually know what i'm doing :)

Sometimes I'm not sure what you're doing either but don't give up ! .

haha
well here's a picture of the hard metal line that i removed. it appears to me to be just a simple angled pipe to connect the pump to the hard rubber line which then feeds the whole vehicle it's vacuum.

But i had taken it off thinking it was the piece described above by you regarding only blowing one way.
Is this the piece that should only blow one way?
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6495.jpg

When i had done the last test i'd just mentioned, i was connecting the mighty vac directly to the top of the pump where this line used to connect.

And here's the bad pump, completely off.
I removed the fan and the shrowd to get access, and also loosened the power steering pump bolts to loosen the tension of belt to get the vacuum pump up and around the belt without damaging the radiator.

I'm not looking forward to tightening up the power steering belt when i close this up. It was not behaving that nicely even with all three bolts loosened. I can tell that step has my number.

After removing the pump, i tried unscrewing a couple of the flathead screws. Man those are on super tight.

Is that the section i should be opening up to potentially replace some sort of valve inside?

For now I might just avoid that whole headache and pull over the pump from other car and work on refurbing this pump later.

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6499.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6500.JPG

The valves are in the pump, you can see the inside parts in the deep recess there .

There's a 13MM ATF bolt you have to turn to adjust the power steering belt after the three pinch bolts are lose ~ very important ! .

OK so the pump has been swapped and is generating steady 22 on the mighty vac. I drove it around the block, literally once, and shifting is great as well as brakes and engine shutoff.
The fan is not yet put back on, but that's all that's left.
I am unsure about the tension of power steering belt.

And a new problem has been introduced, and it is worrysome... the engine now has some sort of knocking sound and also it is smoking. And on startup, it takes a stutter first, where as it didn't before. And on shutoff there is a little bit of a mild squeel to halt.

Could that all be caused by the power steering belt being too tight?

OR could the smoking symptom be caused by the good vacuum being reintroduced after a long time without it?

Here is a video. Very concerned now. There was never any smoke before and startup was always smooth.

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/engineknock.mov

well another update..
i loosened the power steering belt using adjustment bolt but upon tightening back up the three other nuts... one of them seems to have an issue. I hadn't noticed it before, so i'm assuming something just happened.
Basically the stud itself is loose. When standing in front of vehicle looking into engine bay, it is the upper left stud of pump. It can be turned freely by hand. It can be pushed in a bit too, although i didn't dare try pushing in all the way. But it can only be pulled out to the appropriate length by design.
Obviously tightening the nuts around it does nothing as the stud simply rotates.
I have tried pulling the stud as far as out possible while spinning the nut over it by hand but the stud still rotates, so it's not catching inside, or it's just cracked off inside.

However the pump seems to be aligned flush still. It would be worse if it were the stud furthest from belt because that stud/nut resists most of the tension from belt to keep pump flush against engine.

I will try starting the engine as is. I did compare my belt tension to car #1 and i did have #2's belt on too tight so that's better now.

I have the nut far enough onto loose stud that it should pop off too fast and i can at least test the belt tension performance.

oh boy, now i see what i did wrong. And i know what's causing the knocking clammer. Not sure about the smoke however.
I should never have started the engine without the fan bolted on. I did that just to save time in the event that the pump didn't work and i needed to then take it off, and the fan isn't all that easy to deal with.
But in the end it seems i have disconnected the large rotating piece that the fan bolts to. A gear, which connects to drive belt as well. I hadn't realized that it itself was held in place with those fan bolts.

The problem now is that i still can't put the fan/bolts back on without adjusting the rotated position of said gear now. The holes are not lined up at all, in fact i can't put in a narrow piece of something into the holes. It's just a wall. So the gear needs to be manually rotated somehow.

I am imagining this involves removing the drive belt as if i were to replace it, and then manually line up the gear in front of the holes..

oooof

PS Belt Adjustment
 

The loose stud is almost certainly as bolt, you need to hold it from one end as you tighten the other end........

Get that sucker tight before you run the engine ! .

SUCCESS!
All around.

Thank you for the suggestion regarding the rear of bolt on pump because somehow after looking previously i hadn't looked closely enough. There was in fact a rear section of stud(bolt) way back behind a good chunk of material. So that's resolved and the pump is on very well.

As for the tough hand of cards i dealt myself by running the engine without the fan and/or fan bolts in place and thus the fan pulley being rotated out of alignment with it's interior bolts holes.. Well i/we (a buddy was around to provide moral support and labor) ended up loosening the alternator to be able to loosen the two belts to give a ton of slack and fortunately that was enough looseness to allow a us to rotate the fan pulley without rotating the interior bearing/plate/shaft. It actually required quite a lot of slack and i am lucky that the alternator adjustment allowed for such amount of travel... with only being able to undo one of the two alternator bolts. The lower bolt wouldn't budge. The upper bolt i loosened and then the adjustment bolt did it's job. Lucky.

So a good while later, i had everything back together very nicely. And low and behold, not only was the knocking sound gone but also the smoke was gone as well. I have no idea what was causing the smoke but it obviously was my fault and had something to do with the lack of the bolts on the fan pulley.

I topped off the power steering fluid since that was super duper low and causing the expected sounds, and then went for a test drive for around and hour. No highways, mostly just around 40 mph in rush hour traffic on small roads.

Brakes feel terrific.
Power steering terrific.
Engine shutoff perfect.
Shifting is all in pretty good timing, and performs consistently. Shifts are a little hard though, so as i clean out the vacuum system overall i will want to soften the shifting a good bit. It's particularly noticeable when de-accelerating down to slow speed and hearing the final down-shift take place with clear knock. I just don't want to be causing harm to gears/tranny. Obviously it's softer than when i had no vacuum pump functioning, but it's still hard and a little concerning.

This is the first time since buying the first vehicle that i've had all four gears and good breaks and overall solid reliable performance. WOW what a long time coming this has been.

Car #1 is officially the parts car.

Here's a silly question.. the pump is now completely removed from the parts car but in my excitement i forgot to pull it into the driveway before doing this. Would it be an obviously horrible idea to drive the car a few hundred feet so i get it around the corner into driveway? I could always just put the bad pump on so that at least the engine is sealed up. But it isn't the easiest task and so.. could i get away with not doing that? :) The cam in engine at vacuum mount hole is exposed.

Whilst you're properly buttoning up the vacuum pump, take some time to look at the fool with the alternator's various bolts one of the one on front is clearly a 17MM ATF nut, what's not obvious is : the damned nut is welded to the bracket and will never turn ~ once again you have to look behind and loosen it from there, not easy with the AC hoses and stuff blocking access but once you figure it out you'll be set for life .

Good, tranny life extending firm shifts often feel too hard or abrupt to the average American ~ maybe have another Dieselhead ride in your car to see what they think .

I vastly prefer quick firm shifts in all my slushboxes .

Does the PS fluid still look red and smell sweet ? if not, get a turkey baster from the Dollar Store and suck it all out, re fill with ATF not PS fluid and expect to need to change the filter and repeat this a few times before it remains red and sweet smelling .

Failure to keep clean and fresh ATF (Dexron) in the PS system will cause at best the seal to go, at wor$t the pump to fail .

Thank you!
Yes i did actually loosen the Alt bolt "behind" it. I had done a little homework first. But there are two bolts "behind" on the alt, one higher and one lower that is reached by getting under vehicle. That one just wouldn't budge. The upper one loosened well, and to my surprise the tension bolt then performed very smoothly. I had thought it would need both of the proper bolts to be loosened first, like the three bolts on the power steering pump needs.

As for the power steering pump.. yes i use ATF and on car #1 i went through the turkey baster method and fully cleared the fluid. With #2 i just wanted to get fluid in there so i could at least just drive it for an hour without worrying much. I have plenty of ATF and will order the new filter tomorrow and do the cycle.

Is it possible for me to drive my parts car with it's exposed vac pump hole, for just a minute?

Done a lot in the past week and haven't updated here!

Let's see..

- Put bad vac pump on donor vehicle. Drove it into driveway and parked it... for a long time. Bought a car cover.

- Did a switcharoo of front bumper, since main car's bumper was all messed up. My friend helped, and he was so kind as to completely take apart the rubber and reestablish the base rubber strip underneath of it which had slid loose over time and was the reason the large rubber strip was sagging, and did thorough cleaning and chrome polishing and re-blacking of rubber to get my front bumper to look just about new. So nice! Tight and fresh.

- Swapped the two front doors of both vehicles. Doing this gained me two rust free front doors, two fully working window mechanisms, and the completed cutting and installing of my 6.5" speakers. These now have non-tinted glass, however. I may down the road choose to pull over the tinted front windows from former doors. Plus the glass on them is a little less scratched. But this was easily the quickest multi-solution step so that other things could be addressed as well.

- Pulled the two front door latches/catches or whatever they're called, from the donor car. The rubber of the main car's catches was worn away. I still have some subtle alignment issues but the doors are closing nicely after a bit of finicking.

- Pulled the radiator fan (newbie terms) from donor onto main car.

- Oil change! (Was nice that i figured out what pan to use that allows me to not have to raise vehicle.) After much hemming and hawing, i decided to go with "Mobile 1 10W-40 High Mileage". I know it's not winter yet, but it's starting to get cold here at night sometimes. I did notice an immediate improvement in engine startup. Who knows when the last change was. Former owner told me he had always been using synthetic. So i went with that and chose a middle of the road option. Partially because 5W-40 was out of stock everywhere around here. Maybe switch to that next time.

- Changed oil filter as well, and the oil drain plug.

- Cleaned some VAC lines... from the AlDA to intake and from whatever device it is over on drivers side of engine bay that feeds the ALDA and connects to that line above with the banjo bolt. I think it is the Vacuum Transducer. The line between transducer and the ALDA/Banjo connection was completely clogged. I had a lot of hope that this would give me a bunch of extra boost, but as with every step i take i seem to get a subtle improvement culminating in a slow steady march towards solid performance.

- Hooked up gauge to turbo meaurement point and monitored a bit while driving. Getting around 9 to 9.5 PSI gunning it up a long hill. Used to get around 12+ on my other car with the refurbed turbo. I had done zero calibration of ALDA/TURBO on other car, and haven't tried anything on this one either.

- Temporarily sealed off the floor panel of rear right passenger which is mostly gone. I need to go to someone who can weld and have them install a simple panel after i cut away the edges of rust. It makes a big difference for now though, both sonically and with air quality, to have that truly sealed off and covered. Will even work in the rain temporarily.

- Uninstalled former after market stereo and installed my new stereo.

- Pumped the tires to 35. Tire max is 44. Mercedes recommends 28 in front and 32 in rear. Of that's for "leisure comfort." I'm interested in boost and tightness of control. Not sure if going above 35 is a good idea though.

- I've been blessed with a full week of dry days, so have been leaving the windows down a lot. The car is starting to smell just like my old car and i'm very relieved.

- Installed my custom/yakima chrome roof rack. Woo!

THOUGHTS / CONCERNS :

Could there be some sort of bleed/hole between cabin and engine bay? Related to the HVAC behind dash? I seem to get a good amount of engine noise through my dash when accelerating. I don't remember it being quite like that on former car. Also, i do feel that when i have my HVAC running that some sort of not good air quality is coming into cabin. After some time i will start to feel the same kind of irritation in throat and lungs that you feel when you're standing next to exhaust. It's a very small and subtle amount, but i think it might be happening. Also, when i don't have the HVAC running in some capacity, something in the dash rattles to no end. Maybe its a fan that's idle and shaking? It's loud, so i always leave something turned on low.

I'm not very thrilled with the torque i'm getting in general. I know this is a blanket concern and that all of the factors of a vehicle's health contribute to power, but i do think on the other car i had a more powerful reaction to the acceleration up hill than what i'm getting on this one. Granted this is after putting in a fresh turbo, but this turbo does appear to be healthy.

I suppose the next two logical steps for me are valve adjustment and continuing with overall VAC cleaning.

The shifting is all there and in reasonable timing. I'm a little concerned how hard the clunk is when downshifting to first when coming to a stop. But it's not problematic sounding/feeling really, just a tad jolting to hear. Friends in passenger seat ask.. "what's that?"

Rear window does not have horizontal lines going across... But on donor car it does.. Is this the rear window defroster? Is my switch on dash useless? Should i consider swapping rear windows? (yikes)


ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED :

- Steering wheel squeaks
- Accelerator pedal squeaks
- Headliner front panel (visors, light, headliner) all needs to be swapped from other car. This one is falling down.
- Lots of small sections of carpet and hard plastic panels need to be swapped. Many ugly discolorations on this one.
- Rear section of headliner needs to be tightened up. It's falling down above the rear window.
- Rear window tint has some sort of mold growing up from bottom edge
- Remove all tint? Undecided.
- Oil line to radiators has a leak. There is tape around it, and a small leak drips onto street. Gotta pull that line from donor vehicle. This involves fully draining radiator system, correct? Might as well put in a new radiator. This one has a bunch of flattened imperfections in interior face. Would pull from donor but isn't that too much effort when i could buy a new one for 140$ and be set with brand new?
- Turn signals do not auto switch off after turning
- Dash needs to be swapped. This one is all cracked up. This will of course allow me to address stuff inside.
- Rear doors are loudly grinding when in motion. Lubrication of door catches? Hinges?

FAR REACHING PROJECTS :

Plant Drive is the name of the biodiesel system. It is not connected, but apparently all there in tact. Looking forward to that some day. There is a tempting switch sitting in front of shifter.

If all goes well from now through winter and spring, and the vehicle seems to have enough life left ahead of it, i'm going to get some quotes for having it sprayed. It would stay the same color, and i would prep the heck out of it, reducing costs as much as possible.

Well, it's a very rainy day, and i figured out the source of the water leak that is drenching my front passenger floor base layer pad during the rain. All the other rain that's occurred while i've had this car has been at night, until today.

It is definitely related to the sunroof. Weather it is a drain issue, or a seal issue, i don't know yet. I'll have to open the sunroof on a dry day and see.
The sunroof is stuck shut though. The motor tries but nothing budges. I'll need to manually crank it from trunk with some kind of tool, and hope it breaks itself free. Rusted shut maybe?

Here is a video.. There is a constant stream of water running down from visor section all the way down plastic column and behind the kick panel and then finally drips down onto floor by passenger feet. http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6535.mov

Any thoughts on addressing this?
--

DON'T force the sun roof open ! . you'll create misery you cannot believe .

If the manual opening doesn't work fairly easily, STOP and go find the FSM section that deals with dropping the inside trim panel so you can slide it back and disconnect the cables ~ then you can open the roof and blow the drains clean of leaf mulch .

Thank you for the warning.
I will already be wanting to remove the entire front headliner (visor/mirror segment of roof interior) to swap it over from other car anyways. Some of it is falling down.
Maybe i'm in luck and this can be part of the same project logistically..

Sadly ;

I'm old now and never open the sun roof on my cars.....

FWIW, take the time to source and buy a CD - ROM of the factory W123 Shop Manual ~ there's no need to touch the headliner to get the sun roof open .

Of course, since one car has a bad headliner now, that's the one to fool with first ~

Remember after you've taken the cables out and cleaned them and the tracks and re lubricated everything (the special M-B sunroof grease is available, many use short fiber moly grease to very good effect), you'll need to _TIME_ the two cables so they pull/push the sunroof hinges *exactly* at the same time .

REALITY CHECK ENSUES!

Can i do this work myself or do i need a welder person on board? I don't quite understand what the floor board material is. I thought it was some kind of aluminum but what is it? And what kind of material can i replace it with? I'll be cutting away all edges of rust and then needing to securely adhere patches of new material together or hopefully one giant custom patch that i design.

The right rear mount for seat to be bolted to was completely rusted and the bolt was almost non existent. So i had to break off that mount and will need to bring it over from other vehicle and creatively mount it to non-rusted floor/chassis or whatever it is right there.

That section of seat base was rusted too and i had to spend about an hour getting it released and capable of "raising" forward with right side pull lever. I'll be bringing the seat over from other vehicle as well.

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6561.JPG

That floor pan is made of steel sheet metal. Looks like a new one needs to be welded in.

Interesting, well it sure feels like it's just some sort of fiber board. It is all easy to bend by hand, not even just in the rusty sections.

My main reason for attacking this was because i have been getting some exhaust fumes in the cabin air and this is definitley a major reason my lungs have been irritated. I need to address this asap obviously.

I had assumed that this would be the main leak of fumes, and after sealing this whole floor up very thoroughly with thick clear plastic and with gorilla tape at every edge on hard surface along the way, i turned on the car and still have the same amount of exhaust in the cabin.

But now that i had this floor sealed i could at least do a controlled experiment to trace other culprits, and my second guess was the answer.. It's coming from the vents when any air is turned on. I've suspected this but the floor leaks were so glaring that i assumed they were more likely.

I did a test where i cleared out the air for several minutes with the car off and doors wide open, then i closed the doors/windows and say in the car off to make sure the air was clear, then i turned the engine on but kept the heat/air OFF and those vents turned shut. Came back 5 minutes later and hopped inside and it smelled normal just as it did before running car. Then i turned on the heat and opened the vents and left the car like this for another 5 minutes. Came back and sure enough the cabin was smelling strongly of exhaust and was tough on the lungs.

Below is a video of a strange sound that i get when the air/heat is turned OFF. With the engine off, this doesn't occur even with i turn the heat/air ON. This sound is heat OFF and engine running. Then when i turn the heat on (engine still on) this sound completely stops. This is why i have been running some sort of air treatment the whole time i've been driving, because this sound when it's turned off is so annoying and loud.

What could this be, and could this have something to do with exhaust getting into the cabin?

In the video i twist the vents shut and you can tell that the sound is in the dash and perhaps related directly to the vent lines internally. This video doesn't show me turning the heat ON, but if it did the rattling sound would just completely stop.

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/ventrattle.1.mov

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Exhaust Leaks
 

The floor boards proper are steel, mild steel that's fairly easy to work with and weld .

Glued to them however, are the thick padded fiber sound deadening pads ~ you'll need to scrape those loose / up before you weld or you'll never get any seal in the floor .

I can't hear the dash noise but clearly you have an exhaust leak and I bet it's under the hood and drawing into the HVAC .

Look for fluffy dry black soot ~ that'll be the leak .

I bet no one told you you'd be a hands on Automotive Detective when you took on this project :) .

Haha.
Thanks! Where under the hood am i looking for this dry soot spot?

Exhaust Leaks
 

The entire exhaust system, begin where the exhaust manifold meets the cylinder head then look at every joint, there's lots of them .

Also closely inspect the flex pipe as it cracks .

It maybe not be obvious to you that the car will need to go up on a hoist for a full inspection .

Ask an independent muffler shop to have a look and give you a quote .

Also,
It occurred to me that i could cut out a lot of or all of the floor in my parts car as mostly one piece and swap over and weld / JP-Weld ????
That car's floor is in rather acceptable shape and i could mend one little spot, as opposed to this giant terrible floor in keeper car..

My one question about exhaust/bay/cabin leaks is this..
Would an exhaust leak in bay always cause the cabin to receive exhaust via air ducts? Or is it a double issue in that there is an exhaust leak in bay but also a leak in HVAC tubing as well...?

I guess I find it a little surprising that a properly working HVAC system would simply pull air directly from bay and treat its temperature but not filter it.

The Mercedes HVAC system always pulls in outside air from the vents below the windshield. That intake plenum is not perfectly sealed and leakage from underhood exhaust leaks will get in there. It doesn't matter how well the hood closes, if you have an under-hood exhaust leak, you WILL smell it in the car since the fumes will be getting sucked in by the HVAC system.

It shouldn't be too hard to find the leak. If you can smell it, you should be able to see it too. It may help to do your looking at night with a strong flashlight. You'll very clearly see the escaping gasses and smoke.

Floor Pan Repair
 

I don't know about the advisability of JB Weld ~ I know it's good stuff but I'd rather have my torch guy weld it in after I'd cleaned up the edges of both car and replacement part, remembering to overlap by at least 1/4" ~ this small overlap is critical to safety and the repair holding .


You must also put the repair plate in from above, not offer it up from below, this creates better support .

You're taking the steep learning curve pretty well ~ keep at it .

In both of my vehicles, the front seat floor boards have said thick pad glued to top of floor boards, but the rear floor boards are seemingly just one layer of something that i assume is steel, pictured here below...

It's QUITE flexible for being steel, which is what has been confusing. I'm thinking "wow this can be welded?" If i didn't ask anyone i would interpret this as being some sort of fancy plastic.

If i put a strong magnet to it, the kind that are very tiny circles but will not pull off of your refrigerator door without serious prying, it just barely stays on this piece of floorboard and if i shake it while sideways it will fall right off.

So i'm just looking to again confirm the best approach for joining new floorboard materials with old surrounding floorboard..

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6592.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6593.JPG

WELL WELL WELL! What do we have here??..
Seems PO or PM may have skimped during service or perhaps even this turbo was used for parts!
There is only ONE of the usually three braces that hold the turbo together, and thus there are only TWO of the usually six bolts. One of them is almost falling out!
Also plenty of soot around it. I'm going to go ahead and say this may be the reason the turbo whistle's so loudly. Clearly there is not a great seal going on here.
I've been getting around 9 to 9.5 PSI on the boost pressure readings during drives, so certainly it's only having a partial impact. On my previous (refurbed) turbo i was getting around 12. It was also not whistling.

I'm not 100% convinced this is the only source of exhaust getting into cabin, however. But maybe. It's a good bit further away from firewall than where i thought i've occasionally seen exhaust coming up from engine in the recent past. But that could have very well been just a breeze tossing it back.

I will need to either order the other two brackets or just pull off the brackets from my good turbo in other vehicle. Problem is i can't tell how easy it's going to be to get that one bolt back in place.



http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_6595.jpg

here we go.

I either have to replace the whole turbo with my other turbo, or i have to figure out a way to live with this one for a while and cut the exhaust situation somehow.

Turns out the reason all those bolts aren't there is because the threads in female sections are filled up with busted bolt halves. There's no way i'll ever get a good seal between two sections of turbo itself because there is only one bolt ever going to hold it.

Can i temporarily seal that edge of connection point with some sort of goop? Stuff that can withstand the high temperatures of a turbo? It's in place obviously, and mostly sealed, it just is about a 1/16th inch backed out around one side.

Swapping turbos is something i can do and i've done it already, but i'm weary of the bolts on this car more than other car. These ones all seem rather brittle. The thought of quickly attempting to remove the turbo from manifold without cracking those four big bolts sounds like a huge risk.. Even with preparing with rust penetrant for a couple days.

If i crack one, it could a week before i can drive while i struggle with the task of removing entire manifold drilling out those holes. But if i can plan for this project to take place something like thanksgiving week, maybe i can make due with some sort of sealant adhesive around this turbo juncture? Paste?

Part of me is glad i am going to forced to use my other turbo because it definitely seemed to be performing well and was refurb'd.

Turbo Fun
 

The fluffy exhaust is clearly visible on the lower part of your photo .

I'd say just replace the entire turbo with your spare assuming it spins freely by finger (! engine OFF !) and you never get thin blue smoke out the exhaust .

DO NOT swap the turbo without changing the O-rings and rubber oil return tube boot ! .

The stuff in your first photos is the non metallic insulation that was glued to the steel floor board ~ scrape it all up and see how much metal you have remaining .

You mean the photo in post #1? That is a pic of the front passenger floorboard.
In both vehicles... The rear passenger floorboards have none of the insulation on top of it. It's just the thin firm steel.
In front, they do have insulation.
Are you suggesting scraping up both front insulations to check on the status of the floorboards under it?

NO .

I misread your message .

It was not obvious to me! :) I will do this. What kind of rate should i be shopping around for for a full inspection and more importantly what are the segments of the underside of vehicle i should be prioritizing getting feedback about?

The flex coupler did look to be good as far as i could see but since i already put a new one on former vehicle i can pull that one over when i pull it's turbo over as well. Thing is, i had installed that without knowing that the engine mounts were causing the engine to tilt a bit, so after getting the flex coupler on (wasn't easy) it withstood a couple months of use under a little bit of awkward weight in one direction. It was only around 1/8" of pull to the side that the pipes misaligned by, but perhaps it's worth getting a new flex coupler just to get a truly fresh start there. I also put the engine through a long phase of bouncing around due to mounts going worse and worse until i replaced them.

And yes it spun freely. It is supposedly fully refurb'd and looked good as brand new when i got it. I'm planning to go through and double check everything on it though, looking for too much play in impeller.

'Not Obvious '
 

Well of course not, that's why you're here, right ? ;) .

Go back and look at your photo of the turbo from above ~ directly below the oil feed pipe were the lower bolt is gone missing, you can see the soft fluffy black exhaust soot ~ this is what you'll be looking for at every joint/connection in the exhaust system .

Take your own flashlight with NEW batteries ~ .99 cent store again, you should carry one in the glovebox at all times .

I have never been charged to put my vehicle up on the muffler shop's hoist ~ YMMV, if he's honest it shouldn't be more than $10 but that's just me ~ I'm a Journeyman Mechanic who understands there are times when it's not appropriate to charge a Customer .

I'd just roll in and tell him " I smell exhaust, could you take a look and give me an idea what I might be looking at dollar wise please ? " .

FWIW, I have seem a few cracked flex couplings but it you con't see the fluffy black soot it prolly doesn't need replacing .

Winter
 

So ;

How's it going ? .

Have you been able to get it started O.K. ? .

I ask because there's a specific drill few ever bother to follow, my old clapped out NA 300CD always started quickly even in 40° F temps and it had seriously low compression .

Ok friends, time for some real fun! I'm sorry to be distant for so long, but i've been super duper tied up with work. But.... I need some real advice here! ;)

Can someone tell me if this is caused by a sudden burst from weather? OR.. is this a full blown tire slashing?
There was someone i was dating for some time who after a while i discovered is very bipolar and has a abusive impulse you wouldn't believe, so i broke it off a short while ago. She would do something like this.. But I very much hope this is not the case. I hope it's just an explosion from temperature or something. Pictures are below. Totally flat of course.

I mean since mid october i've had them filled well under what is rated on the tires as being max psi. But it was perhaps a couple PSI above what mercedes had recommended. Like if the tires are 44 max, and mercedes recommended 34 or something, then i would have put them at 36 ish. I remember doing that. Would a decrease in temperature go this wrong?

The pictures are at an angle so you can't really tell this, but the lines are perfectly straight. There are three "cuts"..

Is this not the most interesting thread on the forum now? :)

Aside from this.. the engine has been starting up perfectly except for the fact that i have to change my main fuel filter since i did a diesel purge and partly plugged it up with cleaned out gunk. So when i start it up i quickly give it a tiny bit of throttle otherwise it stutters. After just 1 second of a little extra gulp of fuel it's totally fine. Never stutters during operation. But in that regard i've been a bit of a neglectful owner. Gotta change that filter. I mean it hasn't come to a stall out from this, just a blip stutter which i haven't let happen since the first couple times.

But the glow plugs are definitely working. In fact better than my other vehicle. On that one i had to wait two or three times as long as the light would stay on, for the glow plugs to be hot enough to start things up. But on this one it just turns right over.

I'm happy with a lot of things overall, but frustrated with the turbo situation. I got so busy with work that i was not able to swap turbos before the weather turned. So now i have to find a place indoors for a couple days. You know, when i have time. But running the heat invites the fumes into cabin. So it's been cold rides. Fortunately my work is only a 10 minute drive.

Here's what i woke up to this morning..

http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_5555.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_7310.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_4825.JPG
http://media.spacecasetapeecho.com/IMG_7697.JPG

Here We Go.......
 

Nice to know I'm not the only one who's dated a psych-b*tch :rolleyes: .

The _good_ news is : those tires were badly dry rotted and would have blown out on you in time anyway .

The _bad_ news is : you now need to go buy some cheap snow tires and run them until she goes away or does this again .

Yes, those tires were slashed .

Glad to hear it's at least running and starting O.K. .

How difficult is it to penetrate these tire walls like this? My friend in town has suggested the idea that she's just too small to do this. She's like 115 pounds and probably only has a large kitchen knife at her disposal